Virgin Earth

July 1642

All that spring and summer the country was waiting, like the captain, to see when and where. Every gentleman who could command men to follow him armed them, drilled them and trained them, and then wrestled with his conscience night and day as to which side he should join. Brothers from the same great house might take opposite sides and divide the tenants and servants amongst them. The men of one village might come out as passionate royalists, the men of the village next door might side with Parliament. Local loyalties set their own traditions: Villagers in the shadow of a great courtier’s house that had felt the benefits of royal visits might sharpen their pikes and put a feather in their hat for the king. But villagers along roads from London where the news was easily spread, knew of the king’s evasions and lies before the demands of Parliament. Those who prized their freedom of conscience, or those who were prosperous, free-thinking men, said that they would leave their work and their homes and take up the sword and fight against papacy, superstition and a king who was driven to sin by his bad advisers. Those whose habits of loyalty had gone deep with Elizabeth and deeper with James, and were far from the news of London, would turn out for the king.

In early July, as the court at York started to complain of the smell of drains and to fear the plague in the overcrowded town, the king announced that they were to march to Hull once again. This time the plan was better laid. The royalist George Digby was inside the garrison and he had forged a plan with Hotham the governor that the town would open its gates to a besieging force from the king, as long as the force was sufficiently impressive to justify a surrender.

Charles himself, dressed in green as for a picnic, rode out at the head of a handsome army on a warm summer day in early July. Tradescant rode at the tail end of the courtiers, and felt that he was the only man in the chattering, singing, lighthearted band who wished that he was elsewhere, and who doubted what they were about to do.

The city’s defenders were bolstered by soldiers sent by the Scots. “It makes no difference, we have an agreement,” Charles said contentedly.

The foot soldiers laid aside their pikes and got out spades. The royal army started to dig a ring of trenches around the city. “They will surrender before we are more than a foot deep,” Charles assured his commanders. “No need to dig the lines t-too straight or too well. If they do not surrender t-tonight, we will attack at dawn tomorrow. As long as we make a sh-show.”

As the soldiers dug their trenches, and as Charles broke his fast with some red wine and bread and cheese, a simple meal, as if he were out on a hunting trip, the great gates of Hull slowly opened.

“Already?” Charles laughed. “Well, this is gracious!” He shaded his eyes with his hand, and then shook his head and stared harder. The bread fell from his hand, unregarded. Slowly, his laughter died.

A regular well-drilled army marched steadily out from the gates of the town toward them. The front flank kneeled down and the musketmen, steadying their weapons on the shoulders of the front rank, took aim and fired straight at the royalist army.

“Good G-God! What are they doing?” Charles cried.

“To horse!” one of the quicker courtiers shouted. “Get the men saddled up! We’ve been betrayed!”

“It can’t b-be…”

“Save the king!” Tradescant shouted. The royal guard, recalled to their duties, dropped their dinner in the dust and threw themselves on their horses.

“Mount! Your Highness!”

There was a dreadful scream as another volley of shots pocked the dry ground around them, and some of the musket balls found a target.

“Retreat! Retreat!” someone yelled.

All the orders of command were broken, as the men scattered, running like panicked sheep across the stubbly hayfields, pushing through hedges and trampling down the ripening corn. Still the defenders of Hull came forward, the first rank dropping to their knees and reloading as the second rank fired over their shoulders and then marched on. Then they too dropped down and reloaded as the men behind them fired.

It was an unstoppable progress, John thought. The king’s soldiers did not even have fire lit ready for their muskets. They had no cannon ready, they did not even have their pikes. All they had were their trenching spades, and the men who had been digging had been the first to fall, toppling down into their shallow ditches, and screaming and crawling in the dirt.

At last someone found a trumpeter and ordered him to sound the retreat, but the foot soldiers were already up and running, running from the well-disciplined lethal ranks that were pouring, like little toy soldiers, out of the gates of Hull, firing and reloading, firing and reloading, like a monstrous toy which could not be stopped or escaped.

The king’s guards surrounded his horse and galloped him away from the battle. Tradescant, his own horse snorting and pulling, looked wildly around him and then followed the king. His last view of the battlefield was a horse, its stomach blown open by a cannon shot from the walls of the city, and a lad, not much more than fourteen, trying to shelter behind the body.

“This is the end,” John found he was saying as his horse wearily found the road to York and followed in the train of the ragged retreat. “This is the end. This is the end. This is the end.”